I came into WireWay—which Konami graciously supplied me with a review copy of—with intrigue on my mind. Here was a neat touch-centric concept that, I thought, could sit up there with some of my favorite experiences on the DS. It sounded like a really fun, tactile experience, playing nigh-exclusively by stretching back rubber bands and bouncing a little spaceman around. It's the sort of idea that I would have green-lit almost instantly if the games industry happened to be silly enough to entrust me with that sort of authority.
The devil's in the follow-through, though. While WireWay can still be a fun experience, one that I personally enjoyed from time to time, it suffers from a number of problems that make it difficult to enjoy consistently.
Let's start with the good, though: WireWay's core idea is a lot of fun. It feels good to fling spaceman Wiley around, with a helpful curve showing your initial trajectory but relying on your feel for the physics of the level for his eventual destination. You're rewarded with unlockables as well as scores for exploring every nook and cranny. Levels are scattered with bumpers that set Wiley on a high-energy bounce-fest back and forth on different paths depending on how you approach them. The bosses in this game are, as I've come to expect from Konami titles lately, fantastic. And the story, told very efficiently through text bubbles and still pictures you can page through as fast as you can read them, is cute and entertaining. Kudos to both the visual design and writing teams on this one.
But WireWay's game suffers a lot in that not a whole lot of thought seems to have been given to a key problem: being able to see where you're going. I almost wondered if somewhere along the line someone thought it might be a good idea to use the DS' between-screens gap to make the game more difficult, because I frankly lost count of how many times an obstacle—like an enemy who requires visual timing to attack properly—was swallowed up by that gap. Similarly, there are some very basic view controls for looking around a little by holding the d-pad in a direction, but you can't realistically look left and fire Wiley left, because the scroll steals most of the screen real-estate that you could otherwise use for a more powerful shot.
Another troubling factor was the number of times I'd rocket off in some promising direction only to careen uncontrollably into an enemy or hazard. Now, I realize that part of WireWay's game is to have you learn the ins and outs of each level well enough to earn yourself a medal by not doing this a second time around, but I usually found myself not really able to stuff the whole level in my head to that level of detail, or worse, so frustrated from taking undeserved hits that I didn't want to do it again.
I don't really consider myself the type to second-guess developers by saying "they should have done x", but I'm going to do it here anyway. I think WireWay could have saved itself had it a simple zoom-out function, perhaps mapped to a shoulder button. It wouldn't mess with your stretching range, and it would neatly solve a number of problems with blind flings. There would have to be some level design consideration, of course, but I think it could have moved WireWay from "great idea that fell flat" to "great idea that made a good game". As it is, it only manages to work well in spurts rather than consistently.
Because of its issues, I hesitate to recommend WireWay to all but the most hardcore of niche-game explorers. There's still fun to be had here, both in some levels where it's clear where you're going and it's just you and how complete your understanding of the physics standing in your way, as well as the aforementioned boss battles which really stand out. But the frustrations just mounted too often and too much for me to call WireWay a consistently entertaining game. I'd love to give it another shot someday, if they could work out the kinks.
Let's start with the good, though: WireWay's core idea is a lot of fun. It feels good to fling spaceman Wiley around, with a helpful curve showing your initial trajectory but relying on your feel for the physics of the level for his eventual destination. You're rewarded with unlockables as well as scores for exploring every nook and cranny. Levels are scattered with bumpers that set Wiley on a high-energy bounce-fest back and forth on different paths depending on how you approach them. The bosses in this game are, as I've come to expect from Konami titles lately, fantastic. And the story, told very efficiently through text bubbles and still pictures you can page through as fast as you can read them, is cute and entertaining. Kudos to both the visual design and writing teams on this one.
But WireWay's game suffers a lot in that not a whole lot of thought seems to have been given to a key problem: being able to see where you're going. I almost wondered if somewhere along the line someone thought it might be a good idea to use the DS' between-screens gap to make the game more difficult, because I frankly lost count of how many times an obstacle—like an enemy who requires visual timing to attack properly—was swallowed up by that gap. Similarly, there are some very basic view controls for looking around a little by holding the d-pad in a direction, but you can't realistically look left and fire Wiley left, because the scroll steals most of the screen real-estate that you could otherwise use for a more powerful shot.
I don't really consider myself the type to second-guess developers by saying "they should have done x", but I'm going to do it here anyway. I think WireWay could have saved itself had it a simple zoom-out function, perhaps mapped to a shoulder button. It wouldn't mess with your stretching range, and it would neatly solve a number of problems with blind flings. There would have to be some level design consideration, of course, but I think it could have moved WireWay from "great idea that fell flat" to "great idea that made a good game". As it is, it only manages to work well in spurts rather than consistently.
Because of its issues, I hesitate to recommend WireWay to all but the most hardcore of niche-game explorers. There's still fun to be had here, both in some levels where it's clear where you're going and it's just you and how complete your understanding of the physics standing in your way, as well as the aforementioned boss battles which really stand out. But the frustrations just mounted too often and too much for me to call WireWay a consistently entertaining game. I'd love to give it another shot someday, if they could work out the kinks.